3082 replies to this topic

[Wojo]

I either never knew or long forgot that the definition of "special hell" came from the show Firefly.

As much as I love the show, I am really hating watching it. Each episode brings me that much closer to the end of it, and that's all there is and there ain't no more.

[Koray Savas]

I watched the Pilot of Sons Of Anarchy. It was always something I wanted to give a try. I can see it being something I could get into, if just for Katey Sagal, Tommy Flanagan, and Mark Boone Junior.

[KK.]

Finished both seasons of Walking Dead. I felt the second season was an improvement from the first one. I think Joey nailed when he said it had some great moments amongst some not-so-great ones. I appreciated the character development and such. But there were moments when its stagnant nature was very transparent. It seemed like the writers were stalling, "hey let's have them search over that side, and let's throw in a walker in here and then put on a good dispute between characters, etc.". Some actors really shined in this season though. But Andrew Lincoln continues to be awful in the title role. The character itself had bad lines to begin with and his overwrought (in a dramatic sense) performance was truly cringeworthy. It also didn't help that there were a lot of moments where I felt I was watching an uninteresting soap opera.

Overall, I liked the 2nd season over the first one but the show still ultimately ends up being meh.

And now, I'll begin my long overdue viewing of Dexter.

[Jason LeBlanc]

Dexter is AWESOME

The first season is expertly paced, its like a great novel brought to the screen

[KK.]

I thought the pilot was well done and I'm starting the second episode now. Things are looking good for Dexter.

[Alexcremers]

Dexter is amusing but not great. K.K. is not really watching the top groundbreaking shows, IMO. (The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, ...)

[KK.]

I have a lot of catching up to do Alex. An enthusiastic friend wanted me to get through Walking Dead and that didn't turn out to be much. I've been meaning to watch Dexter for a while now but I only managed to get to it now.

And there's a lot of other stuff that I haven't laid my hands on yet like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. But I'm trying to get there, one show at a time.

[Quint]

You're under no obligation to deem Mad Men a bigger priority than Dexter just because the latter isn't a critical darling like the former. Dexter is good clean entertainment from what I can gather. My gf loved it.

[Jason LeBlanc]

It's really terrific, a great character study. I could relate to Dexter (not in the murderous intentions ways, but in the learning how to have and read emotions rather than just being robotic and logical all the time)

[Chaac]

Dexter is amusing but not great. K.K. is not really watching the top groundbreaking shows, IMO. (The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, ...)

Out of these you mention the only one that I find intriguing is Breaking Bad (although they tell me it goes on far too long.)

[nightscape94]

Dexter's first 1st season is among some of the best television there is. The show has remained pretty steady since then. Season 4 is terrific. The last season was up and down, but the potential for the 7th season is amazing. I hope that don't screw it up.

I just watched the first season of Breaking Bad in two days (7 eps). I'm half way through season 2. I'm enjoying it immensely. I've always meant to watch it and I'm glad I committed to it. It's an easy show to fall in love with.

[Jason LeBlanc]

We're making our way through Breaking Bad as well. I think we have 2 or 3 episodes left of season 2. It's so good!

Dexter, for me, never achieved it's season 1 glory, in fact I'd say each season has been progressively getting worse. But I agree Season 7 has awesome potential, and even a bad season of Dexter is better than most other crap on TV anyway!

[Marc]

Damages, final season !

[crocodile]

Watched the first two episodes of Breaking Bad eariler tonight. It's actually very good. Both funny and really scary.. You find yourself cheering for the main character, but at the same time it feels wrong. Good stuff. In fact the best television I've seen in quite a while.

Karol

[Chaac]

I started watching The Walking Dead as I wanted to see what everyone was talking about. So far, its getting a big meh from me.

Exactly! It's Lost all over again and the writing is very average.

Lost didn't make me abandon after three episodes. Three episodes in, Lost was kilometers ahead of The Walking Dead in awesomeness.

[Alexcremers]

Still, it's them against the others. It has the same kind of thing going on. It's that formula or concept that I'm tired of.

[Stefancos]

That's the basic premise of about 60% of all stories out there?

[Alexcremers]

A survivalist community seperated from civilization and threatened by monsters? Maybe, but I thought these two were a bit too similar. I'm completely Lost out, so becoming a fan of The Walking Dead is simply not an option for me. Part of the concept is the kind of interaction between the characters. It felt like a deja vu. I wished The Walking Dead was more like Darabont's The Mist but maybe that's unsustainable for a series.

[Stefancos]

Lost had the same problem The X Files had. You can't sustain mystery for 7 or 9 years without really just drawing it out until it becomes tiring and fake and cliched.

[Alexcremers]

I had outgrown the concept of X-Files and Lost before they were over, but I never got tired of Six Feet Under or The Wire . With the latter, I never felt I was watching a formula.

I am however interested in ....

http://tvline.com/20...di-bonaventura/

[Wojo]

The Walking Dead became a soap opera between the main characters because it would be too expensive and mind-numbing to feature huge zombie battles each week. I can't speak of its similarity to the comic books because I typically don't read comic books.

The X-Files' "monster of the week" episodes were great because they were mostly nonlinear ways to get spooked. The grand story arc of the alien conspiracy and looking for Fox's sister got old really fast.

[Jason LeBlanc]

The X-Files' "monster of the week" episodes were great because they were mostly nonlinear ways to get spooked. The grand story arc of the alien conspiracy and looking for Fox's sister got old really fast.

This. Well, the alien/sister conspiracy was paced fine through 4 seasons or so....but everything after the movie was a convoluted and frustrating mess. They seemed to rewrite their own history every few seasons. By the end we didn't care about Mulder's sister or the damn aliens.

[Koray Savas]

Lost had the same problem The X Files had. You can't sustain mystery for 7 or 9 years without really just drawing it out until it becomes tiring and fake and cliched.

Well for one, LOST is only 6 seasons. Two, it's probably the most original TV series produced. Never fake, sometimes cliched, but so is everything else. Three, the mystery was sustained for the entire duration because that wasn't the focus of the show. It's about the characters, the island just happens to be one of them.

[crocodile]

I don't think Lost was a "mystery show" at all. It had mysteries, sure, but the point (and its heart) was something else entirely. There is a clear auto-ironic undertone when exploring all those riddles and loose ends. It's more about "enjoying the journey" as opposed to "finding the answer" (as the creators would put it). I loved the fact it remained vague in the end. Also, it was a satire on different things and genres, very much like Twin Peaks, but in very different tone (and not as well written/directed).

Karol

[Alexcremers]

All I know is that I got tired of the endless mysteries (one every 10 minutes) and the characters. Watching The Walking Dead brought back my feelings of weariness.

But now for something completely different (and better). Season 5 of Breaking Bad (S3 is not released in my primitive country) has received a whoppping 99/100 score at Metacritic. That's probably the highest score that any movie or show has ever been given.


Alex

[Chaac]

Lost could have been the best thing ever. I still feel disappointed about it.

[BloodBoal]

+1

The show should have ended with five seasons. There are episodes in the last two seasons that could have been removed without affecting much the overall story. By the fifth season, it felt like they were stretching it just for the sake of stretching it. The sixth season is full of episodes where characters are just walking, doing nothing. Having only five seasons would have made the story tighter and more interesting.

[crocodile]

But now for something completely different (and better). Season 5 of Breaking Bad (S3 is not released in my primitive country) has received a whoppping 99/100 score at Metacritic. That's probably the highest score that any movie or show has ever been given.

Watched 6 episodes of season one last week. It's really good, this. Really tense.

Karol

[Chaac]

+1

The show should have ended with five seasons. There are episodes in the last two seasons that could have been removed without affecting much the overall story. By the fifth season, it felt like they were stretching it just for the sake of stretching it. The sixth season is full of episodes where characters are just walking, doing nothing. Having only five seasons would have made the story tighter and more interesting.

The first seasons also have some unnecesary stuff and narratives lines that go nowhere for the sake of stretching it.

What annoys me is the constant abandon of cool ideas for new ones.You could take all the good stuff from seasons 1-4 and create a really, really good adventure/sci-fi/fantasy with a tighter development. They didn't, and one only has to see the show to realize they were changing their minds all the time and didn't know what exactly was going to happen. Which is sad.

The sixth season is a bit of a disaster, but it's just the natural result of what came before. At that point it wasn't going to work.

I would pick this 50 years from now and remake it.

[Stefancos]

What annoys me is the constant abandon of cool ideas for new ones.

That's what I disliked about the 2 latter seasons of BSG. Season 4 changes direction about 3 times....

[BloodBoal]

The first seasons also have some unnecesary stuff and narratives lines that go nowhere for the sake of stretching it.

Agreed, but Season Six was worst in every way. Someone decides to join Locke's side, then go back to Jack's side, then they decide to go on war against Locke, to finally give up and joining him, and so on... They just kept on starting a story arc just to change it after one episode... It was so annoying, if it hadn't been the last season, I might have stopped watching the show at that point.

What annoys me is the constant abandon of cool ideas for new ones.

Agreed. See above. It was more apparent in the later seasons, in my opinion.

What annoys me is the constant abandon of cool ideas for new ones.You could take all the good stuff from seasons 1-4 and create a really, really good adventure/sci-fi/fantasy with a tighter development. They didn't, and one only has to see the show to realize they were changing their minds all the time and didn't know what exactly was going to happen. Which is sad.

Yep. One thing that is really representative of that was the introduction of new characters that were killed before we learned much about them. Take the guys from the freighter for example (Lapidus & co). What was the point of these characters? Useless as shit. Miles Straum? Don't care. Charlotte? Don't give a shit. Lapidus? HAHAHAHA!! Only Faraday was worth keeping.

By the fourth season, most characters introduced were never developed and uninteresting as one can be.

[Incanus]

With Lost (and many other shows) an overarching main plot or the most critical concepts should have been deviced in their entirety before the show was ever started so that the direction could have been held better. But the trouble with that is the ever changing world of network television and the threat of sudden cancelations when ratings drop so perhaps they didn't want to commit to such work before knowing would the show continue past 1st season.
The point is that they could have advanced the main plot more smoothly and still done the character stories with more fluidity if there had been a clearer backbone to the whole arc. Of course when a cancelation hits such a show it feels really awkward to try to wrap up a show meant to go on for several seasons in a couple of episode (not that Lost suffered from that, the last season just had a few slow and pointless episodes).

[Chaac]

Do you remember Ilana? The second rate copy of Ana Lucía in the later seasons. Who dies suddenly just because. They said she was intended to be the "daughter of Jacob" and that they "didn't have the time" (?) to do anything with that. What?? There's so much wrong with that kind of thing! That example is the embodiment of everything wrong with Lost.

In fact a big deal f the Jacob/fantasy part of the story hurts the show a lot, in my opinion, when it starts to justify everything with dull magic without an interesting imaginary or story to go with it. The flash sideways concept was awesome while it was flashsideways and seemed to go somewhere. Then it turns out it's something else... making it completely useless. And killing the emotion of the last scene with it. It's like the show was saying "playing around with the characters in these manners is all we know how to do. Sorry."

I could also be a genius of suspense if I didn't care what happens next. I have to promise myself never to do a Lost.

PS: still haven't seen Prometheus...

[Incanus]

Lost also had a way too large main cast for them even to attempt to develop all the characters to the fullest, especially when people like Ilana and Lapidus start popping up.

What I found odd in the writing department was the strange lack of co-ordination and consensus, which I think led to people writing individual episodes that didn't fit the main body of the story or took the plot in directions it didn't need to go. Piling mystery upon mystery, which turns into another 3 mysteries wrapped in a sideorder of conundrum produced so many loose ends. And even loose ends are not so bad but in the end conforming these into a one vision was obviously a problem.

[BloodBoal]

With Lost (and many other shows) an overarching main plot or the most critical concepts should have been deviced in their entirety before the show was ever started so that the direction could have been held better. But the trouble with that is the ever changing world of network television and the threat of sudden cancelations when ratings drop so perhaps they didn't want to commit to such work before knowing would the show continue past 1st season.
The point is that they could have advanced the main plot more smoothly and still done the character stories with more fluidity if there had been a clearer backbone to the whole arc. Of course when a cancelation hits such a show it feels really awkward to try to wrap up a show meant to go on for several seasons in a couple of episode (not that Lost suffered from that, the last season just had a few slow and pointless episodes).

I understand that, but by the end of the third season, they knew they had only three seasons left. Yet these last three seasons are the ones that feel the less cohesive (It's understandable as far as Season 4 is concerned, though, since it's was during the writers' strike).

Do you remember Ilana? The second rate copy of Ana Lucía in the later seasons. Who dies suddenly just because. They said she was intended to be the "daughter of Jacob" and that they "didn't have the time" (?) to do anything with that. What?? There's so much wrong with that kind of thing! That example is the embodiment of everything wrong with Lost.

Oh, man, I forgot that character! I wonder why...

Oh, and Richard! How could they screwed such a badass character! His backstory was more or less OK, but after that, all he did was standing next to the main characters, doing nothing.

Richard should have remained badass. He was the Tywin Lannister of that show!

[Chaac]

Oh I remember that video

Lost also had a way too large main cast for them even to attempt to develop all the characters to the fullest, especially when people like Ilana and Lapidus start popping up.

What I found odd in the writing department was the strange lack of co-ordination and consensus, which I think led to people writing individual episodes that didn't fit the main body of the story or took the plot in directions it didn't need to go. Piling mystery upon mystery, which turns into another 3 mysteries wrapped in a sideorder of conundrum produced so many loose ends. And even loose ends are not so bad but in the end conforming these into a one vision was obviously a problem.

Isn't the job of a show runner to prevent that from happening?

[BloodBoal]

What I found odd in the writing department was the strange lack of co-ordination and consensus, which I think led to people writing individual episodes that didn't fit the main body of the story or took the plot in directions it didn't need to go.

What are you trying to say? That episodes like Exposé (the one with Nikki and Pablo. You know, the two characters you don't remember!) didn't fit with the rest of the story? Idiot!

[Chaac]

There's quite a lot of filler in that season, which reaches its highest point in the episode about Jack's tattoos. They spent an entire episode to kill these two characters because nobody gave a damn about them once they were introduced for no reason.

[BloodBoal]

Ah, yes, Jack's tattoo story with that asian girl playing with a kite. Damn, LOST could be pretty awful at times!

[Incanus]

Ah, yes, Jack's tattoo story with that asian girl playing with a kite. Damn, LOST could be pretty awful at times!

And then there were some pretty brilliant episodes character and acting wise.